Choices

You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world . . . but you do have some say in who hurts you.                                John Green

I finished reading The Fault in Our Stars by John Green this week. A few pages into it, I thought, “Maybe this was not such a good idea.” Since I just lost a close friend to lung disease which had no known cause, reading a book in which a main character had terminal cancer in her lungs seemed to have been a questionable decision on my part.

But I kept reading anyway.

And—wow. As I said in my last blog post, I knew that the young adult genre was the right place for me to turn when I was hurting. Young adult novelists face problems head on—no candy coating, no pretensions. Is this a world full of pain? Uh-huh. Do bad things happen to good people? You betcha. But young adult writers don’t leave you in existential nihilistic emptiness. A message of hopelessness and meaninglessness is not part of the unspoken contract between reader and writer. In fact, the opposite is true. Some small seed of hope is expected, despite the painful truths explored in a young adult novel. And I believe that John Green truly delivered on this promise in this work of art.

He hit on the truth. There is a layer of fear that the chronically and terminally ill face each day—the impact of their conditions, and especially of their deaths, on those who love them. It’s a fear born of love. We all face it—there is always a risk in loving someone: risk of disappointment, risk of rejection, risk of loss, risk of hurting those we love ourselves. But most of us choose to love others anyway—accepting that risk is our choice. We may not like the risk, but we choose love anyway.

Shortly after a hospitalization in which the critical nature of my friend Fal’s illness became evident, we were sitting on her couch talking. Her husband came in, and she spoke to both of us. “You know, I yelled at Rudi for calling you. I said, ‘Hasn’t this woman already gone through enough already without having to deal with all this?’”  Then Fal paused and looked at me. “I don’t want people taking on more than they can handle to help me,” she said. “It’s . . . too much to ask.” She knew what was coming—the risks involved. And she wanted to protect us. She wanted to give her friends an out, in case we couldn’t handle the pain.

But we have a choice. We can choose to toughen up, to turn away, to distract ourselves or distance ourselves from others. Sometimes we do it for our own good—we know that getting too attached will lead to heartache. Sometimes it seems the wisest course. And sometimes we choose to love despite the terrible risks.

It doesn’t always seem like a choice. I could not help loving my friend, any more than I could help loving my own family. But, in truth, it is a choice. And that’s what Fal needed to know. That we, her friends, were walking into this situation with our eyes wide open. With a full understanding that we were taking on a big risk in sticking with her. And she wanted us to know that she’d forgive us if we couldn’t take that risk. She didn’t want us to get hurt.

I told Fal to let it go—she didn’t have any choice over whether we decided to hang tight or distance ourselves. We’d each do what we needed to do—she’d have to rely on each of us to make the right choices for ourselves. We knew she wouldn’t love us any less no matter what we chose. We’d promise to take care of ourselves and our needs, if she’d promise to take care of her own, and let go of ours. She reluctantly agreed. But she never stopped worrying about us.

Fal worried about her family above all else. When the kids are older, I’ll probably recommend The Fault in Our Stars to them. Because the other thing we want for our loved ones is the opportunity for each one of them to lead fulfilling lives, to be whole and to truly live and find happiness if we should pass before them. That’s what Fal wanted. John Green got that right, too.

The Fault in Our Stars doesn’t make the pain go away. But it reminds me that I had the choice to love Fal. I even had the choice to love my brother and sister.  And my choices have left me richer, despite the losses.

Thanks, John Green (and Augustus Waters).

Thank you, Fal.

Words

I loved my friend.

He went away from me

There’s nothing more to say

The poem ends,

Soft as it began--

I loved my friend.

                       by Langston Hughes

This week, I lost my friend. In the darkness of grief, when reality has become unreal, when tears don’t heal and the future seems like a long road of emptiness, where do I go? What do I do? I turn to words. And sometimes they fail me. “There’s nothing more to say.” There is more grief expressed in those words written by poet Langston Hughes than in anything I’ve ever read.

Words heal us. As writers, the words that flow can surprise us. W.H. Auden said, “I look at what I write so that I may see what I think.” It’s a primal kind of therapy for some of us, a way to pull from the jumbled brain something that has shape, or order, or meaning.

As readers, words connect us. Whether they make us smile—hey, I’m not the only one who thinks that’s funny!—or bring us to tears, it’s all about the human connection.

Writers for children must honor this need for connection in their work. Books like Each Little Bird that Sings by Deborah Wiles for middle graders, and The Last Summer of the Death Warriors by Francisco X. Stork for young adults deal with life and death, and living in the midst of death, in ways that acknowledge and honor all of our mixed emotions about moving forward in a world that can be filled with heartache. The fact that sometimes we don’t really want to face up to our fears and losses, while somewhere deep inside we are aching to come to terms with them—these are themes and threads that run throughout our lives, and that run through all good literature. Each Little Bird and Death Warriors both fit the bill here beautifully.

So where do I turn when my own words fail me? When I can’t write my way out of my own hurt? To the words of others. To books, of course. Young adult, preferably—tightly written, emotionally true. And for one other reason which I’ll get to in a minute.

Next to me is a copy of The Fault in our Stars by John Green. A novel of life and death and the people caught in between, says Markus Zusak’s review on the back cover. Because I need that connection right now—to feel a little less alone in my head with all these difficult feelings. Because I know that it will help me think about my own loss and view it in a different light. Because, despite all the crying I’ve been doing in the past few days, I need another good cry—the kind which connects me with people I’ve never met, all feeling some of the same sort of feelings that those of us who knew and loved my friend are feeling right now. A connection to the great ocean of the world’s sorrows, but at the same time, a connection to the world’s light. Because young adult books may leave us sad, but they will never just dump you into the middle of despair and leave you without a life vest. If John Green’s book is true to the tradition of young adult work, I’ll find what I’m looking for by the end. That glimmer of hope. That life vest I need so desperately right now.

As for my own words, I offer up a poem I wrote out of gratitude for having had my dear friend in my life. I include it here as a connection to the greater world. If you didn’t know my friend, at least you may get a sense of who she was—who she’ll always be. May she bring a little light to your life, as she has done for so many others. May she always be remembered.

   

Drawing a Lotus

with gratitude for Fal

From the dark paste,

like a seedling lifting

itself from the mud,

a flower emerged

and raised its head

to the light of the world.

From her warm hands

she gave the lotus life.

She blessed the skin,

she blessed the heart

of its bearer.

Mehndi maker,

on our souls

you drew a

life

so beautiful,

a pattern

so pure,

a love

so real

that it

could

never

fade.

Within the heavy

darkness of our hearts

a lotus stirs:

your love for us.

F. Prescott

1/13/13